Sons of the Apocrypha: Old Father Time
by Nate Walis
Summary: Awoken from his slumber, the ancient Dreadnaught known only as "Brother Phobos" begins to tell the tale of Caracala, the broken hive in the middle of a blighted desert and the hunting of the Toll Booth Boys gang by the fearsome and supposedly legendary figure of "Father Time", a horror used to frighten children in the cold nights of the under-hive depths.


The story of man is always best told in song and sung from one to the next in a chain that stretches back through the ages, linking all down from this generation to the last and to lose hold is to be cast adrift and alone in the uncaring tides of oblivion. It is a truth known to the wise and most of all to he who sits upon the throne above all other men, for what is the incomparable beacon of the Astonomicon if not his own voice, raised in song and so offering guidance to all of his disparate children in the farthest corners of the Imperium? Across the deathly wastes of interstellar space we hold ourselves together as a species with the pains and exhortations of astropathic communication and even in this we name those who serve in this function as a choir.

Is this mere coincidence?

I do not think so.

Men sing to praise the Emperor while at worship.

They sing to lighten their hearts when at play.

Even while they are working they will sing a song to relieve the monotony or else keep up a rhythm essential to the craft and in time with their fellow labourers.

Imagine then the voices raised in union within the heart of a living Hive, within the close confines where more than one billion souls dwell and never spare a thought for what might exist beyond the walls of the world in which they have been raised.

Picture the endless foundries pouring molten metals without stopping for day or night, the manufactorums working at peak efficiency as they know no other state of being and the munitions plants in which shells are assembled that will kill men or worse on the opposite side of the galaxy.

Each has its own song and all of the workers know their own individual line with the same unquestioning instinct that they know to kiss the Aquila and obey when told. And all of them sing when the time is right for them to do so, without prompt or reminder.

But imagine then that there is one note of discord in the choir of millions, one voice that is out of harmony and jars against the gears that have previously run smooth. Maybe there is dissent in the mind of the voice that refuses to sing its part; perhaps some would claim there was malevolent intention in the upset which it causes. But in the end there is also the chance that it is nothing more than simple human error, a moment of carelessness which begins the inevitable descent into chaos.

Something is misplaced, a cap is not sealed true, or vital check is not made.

So much molten metal, so many volatile chemicals and so much ordnance stockpiled and ready to be sent upon its way, but stacked and stored in the belly of the Hive.

So many souls, so little space and so much effort to seal them inside where they are safe from the poison that passes for an atmosphere.  
Perhaps it was inevitable that such a song would be silenced.

Caracala had been visible from orbit even before the disaster struck, not in the slightest an unusual quality for a Hive of its size and magnitude, but made all the ominous by the reputation which had grown up around it since. Sprawling across the desolate wastelands that constituted the equatorial regions of the planet designated as Argolid Prime IV but known to all outside the Adeptus Terra as Enkaiden, it had been termed the Old Man of the Desert throughout the system on account of its being the very first settlement of its kind founded amongst the distant worlds of the Argolid Cluster.

Hidden beneath a truly monumental shell that gave it some resemblance to a titanic and filthy mollusc, the Hive drained all that it could from the surface of the planet and the earth beneath it to feed its endless industry. The toxic refuse of these processes was the only thing returned, poisons rendering the desert sterile and devoid of life while the perpetrators of the damage huddled beneath the mighty shell of their home.

Some had wondered if the desert in fact predated Caracala at all, or rather the landscape had been choked to death slowly over millennia until it became the hostile environment it was now. Maybe the need to seal every hatch and construct the shell to keep out the elements was ultimately the fault of the very people who had been forced to do so. It would not be the first time that men have been brought low by their own lack of foresight.

Once the final cost of the disaster that engulfed the Hive was estimated and the reports from those who sifted through the wreckage collated, there was still no consensus on what actually caused the initial explosion from which the chaos quickly spread. A manufacturing census recovered from cold storage archives beneath the capital was already two hundred years out of date by the time it arrived in the hands of the Munitorum officers responsible for the investigation. But even so it listed literally thousands of different candidates amongst the unstable, inflammable and highly explosive substances that Caracala had been responsible for producing.

Some claimed that the whole thing had been a deliberate plot on the part of the leadership of the compliance taskforce that was a century into the act of bringing the worlds of the remote region firmly back under the yoke of the Imperium after the system had been lost for almost a millennia before. But even those ruthless warlords were sorely wounded by the loss of the resources that the Hive afforded them and it was a widely known fact that Caracala had been held up as one of the shining examples of success in the progress of the efforts to win the hearts and minds of the native population. Killing so many obedient and newly sworn subjects of the Imperium in order to make an example to those who still resisted would have seemed illogical even for the byzantine schemes of those in possession of the power to do so.

In the end all talk of blame and cause was academic as the reality of those who survived in the heart of the broken Hive worsened by the day. Disorder, disease and starvation drove the wretches still alive within the carcass of Caracala to desperate lengths in order to sustain themselves from one day to the next. Mass unrest erupted into riots which the already taxed authorities were simply unable to contain and soon organised gangs were reported amongst the ruins, armed with whatever weapons they could find and intent upon making prey of those weaker than themselves as well as the symbols of law and order that still remained.

Torn between the continuing fighting on multiple fronts that was necessary to push onwards with their crusade of re-conquest and this new threat which had sprung up at their backs, the taskforce took uncharacteristically decisive action and ordered an immediate and brutal suppression of the Hive by troops who they could be sure were more than equal to the task

Merely an hour after the order had been given, the largest part of the Aquila Encarmine fifth company descended upon Hive Caracala via massed drop-pod assault.  
Seventy Astartes entered the heart of the unrest and made no vox contact for three entire days.

On the morning of the fourth day a communication was received by the taskforce command that informed them the Astartes were in control of the Hive and requested their position be relieved by PDF troops at the earliest opportunity.

The best estimates were that of the approximate one billion souls recorded as residing inside Caracala before the disaster, perhaps half perished in the initial firestorm. They were thought by many to have been the luckiest as another quarter were the victims of slower and more painful deaths amongst the horrors that followed. Of the two hundred and fifty million souls that remained alive when the Astartes began their pacification, the marines were conservative in their belief that they had been forced to kill no more than an additional few hundred thousand as an example to inspire the rest to comply.

And so dying of its wounds, torn open to the toxic elements and deprived of more than three quarters of its populace, Hive Caracala lay still and bled away its last vitality.

But in the bowels of the underhive, little of much consequence seemed to have changed.

Miel had only ever had once name and he was uncertain as to why anyone would need more than that so long as they were clever enough to remember where they were from and the limits of the territory that belonged to their individual gang. He was sharp enough to know that he met his own requirements for intelligence on account of the way in which he had risen to a position of influence despite not being the strongest in the arm or the best with a weapon. And there had never been any confusion as to where the territory of the Toll Bridge Boys could be said to begin and end.

Once there had been dozens of points at which one could make the crossing of the great Excremental, the mighty river which ran through the very heart of the underhive and stood as one of the defining landmarks beneath the weight of upper Caracala. But the years of neglect that were followed by the ravages of the troubles saw most of them cast down into the slow-moving tide of effluence that constituted the river. Of those that remained there were no more than three which were thought safe to use and perhaps twice that number which were suspect and left untried. For most it was enough of an incentive to place themselves in the hands of the unscrupulous thugs who had taken control of the safe crossings when balanced against the chance of falling into the liquid sewage that flowed constantly beneath them.

Miel had no idea if the bridge that he called home had ever truly been a toll bridge, but there was one expected for the use of it while his own gang held the squat bunkers that formed the towers on either bank. It had become a game for them to invent almost always on the spot a price that was based not on a recognised sum, but instead upon the subtle observations that could be made about their patrons during the slow crossing. When they were not intent upon simply killing those who wanted to cross and tossing the stripped bodies off the side of the bridge, they aimed to make the poor souls squirm when they reached the far bank and found the price was something they valued or else a cruel twisting of the words they had spoken during the journey across the river.

But most times they did prefer to simply kill the travellers and take what they wanted.

It was not simply because they were a vicious band of thugs that they more often than not chose this course of action. Often times the fumes that rose from the

Excremental and the frequent geysers of sewage propelled hundreds of metres into the air by pockets of methane rendered the act of venturing out onto the bridge potentially lethal even with the aid of a rebreather and goggles. At such a time there was little else to do and tempers frayed so that they were glad of an unsuspecting victim on whom to vent their frustrations rather than turning on each other.

One of the unspoken duties of a ganger as old as Miel was keeping the others from killing each other or being killed by outsiders. If not, then how could any of them hope to live long enough to match his age of fourteen years?

It just so happened that those very same thoughts were playing through his mind as he lay alone in his bunk, head still thick from the drink he had consumed the night before and the sound of pound music almost drowning out everything else when the first shouts began to penetrate his self-imposed seclusion.

Everyone in the bunker had been on edge since the incident that even now had Miel questioning the responsibility he held to the rest of the gang and wondering if he was up to the job. There had been a few shootings and messy situations with the crossings while the boys were trying to settle back down into a normal routine. But at the same time they were afraid that the whole thing would start again and there would be more bodies to toss over the side of the bridge that had once been their fellow gangers.

As he dragged himself off the bunk and made for the stairs, Miel slung the belt that held his holstered autopistol and ammo across his shoulder. If there was enough of a panic to need him upstairs then there was also enough of a panic to need shots fired in anger.

He was halfway up the stairs when the words began to make sense.

"He's back," uncommon fear filled the shout, "Old Father Time's back."

They had called him Old Father Time because that was what he had always been called in the tales that they recalled from their earliest youth. Of the many folk-demons and horrors that were supposed to stalk the depths of the underhive, his was the name that parents invoked to keep their children in line and chastise them when they misbehaved. No one grew up amongst the slums and sinks of deepest Caracala without knowing that Old Father Time made his way from one end of the Hive to the other, forever asking his one question and always wanting to hear the wrong answer so that he could fall upon the poor soul who gave it and carry them away to who knew what pit of torment.

Supposed to take the form of an impossibly old man who bent beneath a great cloak which covered his form, Old Father Time was supposed to stop those that he passed on his endless travels and ask them the same question.

"What is the time?"

His legend claimed that no one truly knew the answer that he sought, whether it was best to be honest or better to lie, even if there was a clever reply that would send him fleeing back to his lair. But whenever a person was accounted missing, there were still those who would clutch at an Aquila and curse the name of Old Father Time.

Miel had not been there when the man who had earned the name of such a fantastical horror had made his first crossing of the bridge. He had only come later to see the bodies being disposed of and to hear the accounts of the way in which he had appeared from nowhere, braved the Excremental with no protection of any kind and asked his question of the gangers on the other side.

Truly he did not believe half of what he had been told.

No man could have breathed the raw fumes of the river and failed to succumb, let alone reached the other side and been cogent enough to speak or defend himself.

At best he was convinced that there had been a bad mess made of a routine crossing and those who had survived the shooting that followed were inventing excuses to cover their shame.

But in the end all that truly mattered was the need to restore the confidence of the gangers who still looked to him for leadership. Miel knew that the only way to do that would be putting to rest the legend that had grown up around the man who had seemingly returned to the scene of the crime.

Most likely he would have no choice but to kill whoever this turned out to be, make an example of what happened to anyone who throw his weight around with the Toll Bridge Boys. It made no difference that the names and faces of those who had died in the first incident were already hard for him to recall, a statement had to be made and he was on his way to ensure that it was.

Fully twenty of the Toll Bridge Boys had gathered behind the rockcrete barriers that guarded the end of the bridge. They clutched a motley collection of scavenged muskets, jezzails and the occasional pistol that could have been mistaken for a handful of scrap metal. Each one tried to show courage that he did not feel as they watched the silent figure that had been spotted amongst the broken columns at the side of the causeway before them.

Miel emerged to see the backs of their heads and was instantly aware of the fear that radiated from them. Something was not right and he hurried where they stood in the hope of understanding what was causing their state of intense unease.

When he finally laid eyes upon the figure for himself, he began to share their trepidation.

Old Father Time seemed to crouch upon one of the crumbling columns so that his great cloak spilled to the ground around him and hid its base from sight. Outside of the dull grey of the garment, all that could be seen of him was a large head left bare to the elements, its bald pate showing numerous scars and the eyes hidden in pools of darkness beneath craggy white brows. There was not one ounce of spare flesh on the face, the skin pulled tight and the mouth hidden beneath long moustaches that matched the brows in colour.

Though he looked down at the ground before him, Miel was somehow sure the old man was aware of their every movement. And sure enough, as soon as he made his way between the crouching forms of his fellow gangers, the huge head rose up to regard him with eyes that glinted like pieces of broken onyx.

Miel wanted nothing more in reality than to turn and run as he felt the gaze of Old Father Time fall upon him. But what choice did he have in reality other than to stand up for those who looked to him as their leader? He tried as best he could to stop himself from shaking as he walked, each step closer to the terrible old man making him more vulnerable and alone. Any moment he expected something to happen, something that would take him by complete surprise, but instead he advanced slowly forwards until he was standing no more than a few metres from his goal.

"What is the time?"

The moment that the question was asked, time itself seemed to slow in Miel's perception. It was as though the impossibly deep and rough voice of Old Father Time cast a spell upon him and made his limbs move through deep water.

In his mind there was no possible answer to the question, no way that he could even begin to consider it as such. Instead his leaden arms began to reach for his weapon while his thoughts seemed to race on, unaffected by the same lethargy. Old Father Time's question was pushed aside as others jostled for his attention and drowned out almost everything else.

Why did he crouch atop a pillar?

Why did he keep himself covered with his cloak?

Why, when it would have dragged behind him through the detritus of the Underhive was that same cloak clean of such filth?

Miel could not hope to answer those questions, but under their weight he made a decision in a split second and changed his reaction totally. His hand moved no closer to his gun and instead he threw himself sideways and towards the ground.

Almost the moment he had done so, he knew it was the right decision.

Old Father Time came to life in a sudden flood of movement that seemed to once more return the flow of time to its normal speed. The edges of the cloak parted like the wings of a bat to reveal a body that was not crouched atop a column, but instead standing a full nine feet in height. Rather than that of a wizened old man, this giant's body might have been the inspiration for a masterpiece of anatomical sculpture, so broad were the shoulders and perfectly proportioned the limbs. He was clad in carapace armour of slate grey colour and functional appearance and in his hands he held a weapon that was as much a legend as Old Father Time himself.

Miel had never seen a bolt weapon, few had and even fewer lived more than a few seconds afterwards if they were looking down the barrel. Old Father Time levelled the muzzle with no more than a second to judge the distance between where he stood and the bunker, as though the weapon was as familiar to him as his own hand.

He pulled the trigger a second later and put the entirety of the Toll Bridge Boys down without blinking once.

Though it simply could not have been so, the stunned ganger swore that he could see each individual bolt as it left the barrel of the gun, followed close behind by a boom of propellant. Few of them seemed to hit a specific target, but after the first exploded in a concussive blast of force it was clear that there was no need for such accuracy. Bodies flew through the air in ragged pieces and huge chunks of rockcrete were torn free to accompany them wherever the killing fire hit home. In a matter of less than a minute, there was simply nothing left that could have been identified without the use of a microscope or resorting to dental records.

The sound of a sickle-shaped clip falling from the underside of the now silent bolter to clatter on the floor caused Miel to look up and realise that Old Father Time had turned and was now standing over him like an image from an obscura nightmare.

All that he could manage to process was the unpleasant realisation that somewhere in the middle of watching his entire gang be reduced to their constituent parts; he had lost control of his bowels and was now sitting in a spreading puddle of his own filth.

A fresh clip of ammunition was slammed home to break the silence between them before Old Father Time allowed the weapon to slide to his hip on the strap that was now visible across his chest. Seeing the bolter lowered should have been a relief, but Miel was more than sure it would return faster than he could move should the need arise.

"I will ask you a question," the voice was as deep and intimidating as ever, the inflections evident in his use of the common Caracalan form of speech now giving away the fact that he was from somewhere else entirely. "If I like the answer you will not die here and now."

It was nothing more than a cold statement of fact, not even a promise that he would live.

Miel nodded frantically.

"In the few seconds that you stood before me," Old Father Time was now towering over the far smaller boy, "I saw you change your mind on the edge of a knife, as it were. One moment you were determined to draw your weapon on me and in the next you had thrown that aside to make a dive out of my way instead. I want to know why?"

"I…I" Miel choked on the words.

"Tell me what I want to know or I will make sure you waste no more of my precious time."

"Your cloak, it was your cloak!"

"My cloak," Old Father Time did not sound convinced, "what about it?"

"If you were normal," Miel jabbered the words, "your cloak was too long and should have been covered in shit…you'd have dragged it through everything down here. If you weren't normal then I had no idea what I was up against and I wasn't going to chance you being as big a monster as they said you were…and are."

He thought the last comment alone would earn him a shot between the eyes.

But he was astonished to see the terrible face suddenly break and twist into a grin that was somehow every bit as intimidating as the snarl had been. The laugh that followed was like the booming of thunder in his ears as the giant reacted to his words with genuine amusement.

"A bold show of defiance that was tempered under combat stresses with a revaluation of the opposition and a change of tactics that resulted in the preservation of the unit to fight another day…followed by a somewhat crude assessment of the opposition's potential for psychological intimidation. Perhaps I have finally found something that I can make use of in this festering sump."

Old Father Time extended a hand that could have swallowed most of Miel's head in its palm

"You will get up and come with me," there was no room for objection in his tone. "I see the possibility of potential in you and I claim that in the name of the Sons of the Apocrypha, Children of Basilisk and Astartes of the Holy Emperor himself. Believe me boy, today you are filled to the brim with fear, but in time you will know none."


End file.
